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"There are few Saints like Saint Agatha in Sicily who have had as large a cult following throughout the centuries. Since February 1st, 1481 it was an obligatory holiday: nobody was allowed to work, open warehouses and stores, under pain of paying a fine. The cult of Saint Agatha was never abolished by anybody, and this Saint is standing like a 'tower that never crumbles'".​

-Giuseppe Pitrè, 1877

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Devoti Tutti examines the cost of martyrdom with a modern feminist lens, through the eyes of an animated Saint Agatha and the lives of women raised in the Italian city of Catania.

 

Each year, nearly a million people gather in Catania for the world’s third-largest Catholic celebration to pay homage to Saint Agatha. Director Bernadette Wegenstein weaves together the rituals and celebration surrounding Agatha with the actuality of violence that has faced women for centuries and the impact of domestic violence on Catanese women and their families.

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Agatha is known as the patron saint for breast cancer patients, victims of sexual assault, and of natural disasters. 

The Catanese believe that Agatha protects them from natural disasters.  When Mt. Etna erupted in 1169, they carried her sacred red veil to the river of lava, which miraculously ceased its flow towards Catania. 

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